Traceability, Change and Quality – Chapters
27-29 Requirements Text
Steve Chenoweth & Chandan Rupakheti
RHIT
Question 1
Traceability: Primary Questions

Why is tracing important?
Why we care – remember this triangle?
Question 2
Traceability: The Problem

How do you know, if you’re at one of these later stages, that
you have a requirements fault?
In general, how to trace…
Use Traceability
matrices
Tracing User Needs to Features
Feature 1
Need 1
Feature 2
Feature n
X
Need 2
X
…
X
Need m
...
X
X
Tracing Features to Use Cases
Use Case
1
Feature 1
Use Case
2
Use Case
n
X
Feature 2
X
…
X
Feature 3
...
X
X
Tracing Requirements to Implementation
Tool Support

Spreadsheets
◦ Maintaining and updating the links is difficult
Relational Databases
 Requirements Management Software

Question 3
Factors for Change
External
 Internal

Unofficial sources contributed up to half of the total scope
of the project
Question 4
Managing Change: Primary Questions

How do you capture change requests?

How do you respond to these (individually & overall)?

How does this tie-in with tracing requirements?
A Process for Managing Change
Step 1: Recognize that change is inevitable, and plan for it
A Process for Managing Change

Step 2: Baseline the requirements
◦ This means they are signed-off on, and
◦ From then on, they fall under change control – see
below
• Step 3: Establish a single channel to control change
– No ad hoc additions
– No ad hoc fixes, either
A Process for Managing Change
In  this big picture,
you especially need to
know what “release
management”  is!
Step 4: Use a Change Control System to Capture Changes
Step 5: Manage Change Hierarchically
Question 5
Follow the link
There is a dependency between the various artifacts
involved in requirements mgmt
 Follow the chain and make sure that the change is
propagated

Products vs. Processes
Organizations that produce high-quality products invest
in high-quality processes.
 Product quality can be measured through testing.
 How can we measure process quality?

Review Methods

Informal
◦ Ask a peer to read and give comments

Formal
◦ Ask a peer to prepare for review
◦ Record and report results of review

Active
◦ Interrogate reviewer
Start Question 6
Checklists
Look for anticipated defects
 Some defects apply to almost all artifacts

◦ Does the artifact exist?

Some defects are artifact-specific
◦ Have you identified all stakeholders?
End Question 6
Problem Statement Checklist
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Has a problem statement been drafted?
Is it written in an easy-to-understand way?
Does the team understand it?
Has it been circulated for agreement to the key
stakeholders, including management?
Do the team members have agreement that this is the
problem they are trying to solve?
Supplementary Specification Checklist (1/2)
1.
2.
3.
Have you established an appropriate template?
Are all functional requirements not specified by use
cases included in the supplementary specification?
Have requirements for usability, reliability,
performance and supportability been captured?
Supplementary Specification Checklist (2/2)
4.
5.
Have design constraints been identified?
Have supplementary requirements been linked to use
cases where appropriate?
Extra Credit

Find two web based requirements management software
tools (by searching on the Internet, etc.), and briefly describe
the features they support.

How are requirements captured in the agile and
extreme methodologies? Read Chapter 30 and write a
report.

Submit using Moodle (Lessons – Extra Credit – Week
6)